However, when the adult ticks need to mate and feed one last time before laying eggs, they quest at a higher level on the shrubs, where (in the eastern states) they tend to acquire predominantly just one kind of mammal: the white-tailed deer. No other mammal is so large and so abundant. Each female tick that feeds and drops off can lay 2,000 to 3,000 eggs. You can often find hundreds of ticks on a given deer.

Studies have shown that 94 percent of all adult female deer ticks get their last blood meal from a white-tailed deer. This is why deer are considered a keystone species in the life cycle. When the deer population is reduced (but NOT eliminated), there is a threshold effect such that at a certain density of deer, the ability of the tick population to reproduce is dramatically reduced. This is the why of deer management, with regard to disease. Other benefits of deer management include allowing the forest to regenerate, and cutting the toll in deer-vehicle collisions.

DUH. IF YOU REMOVE OUR FOOD SUPPLY.. DON’T WE JUST SEEK ANOTHER? DONT SEE THIS WORKING EVEN REMOTELY. KW

Thanks for your comment! I know that many of us believe that Lyme is passed sexually, but it is controversial nonetheless. Do you have a Lyme literate doctor availabable to you within driving distance – or anywhere in your country? Or do you have to treat yourself? Have you been sick on and off since ’79 or extremely ill the whole time? Feel free to peruse the free ebooks on this site and I have four more to add. I love to write but have to work around the Lyme fog. I am actually trying out a protocol that could be a life saver for many…and I promise to keep all my subscribers posted. The protocol takes one month instead of open-ended like all the others (except stem cell therapy) but the cost difference between the 2 is about $50,000 – $70,000 vs. $500 – $1000! And most of us are so financially destroyed by this disease!!

Anyways, thanks again for your comment.

Blessings,

Jenna

About 1.5 million deer a year are involved in collisions with vehicles and most of them die, but some are injured and live on in crippled condition. This is a tragedy for the deer, but also, about 29,000 of these accidents involve human injuries, and about 200, human fatalities. The deer overpopulation problem won’t get better without deer management.

Second, yes, it’s true that a lot of smaller animals have a role in hosting Lyme bacteria, especially in the first year of the tick life cycle. This is why there is a focus on the white-footed mouse, since it is indeed a reservoir for the bacteria. But the one large mammal that is present in sufficient density during the crucial second year of the tick life cycle, when the adult female deer tick needs a blood meal and some transportation, is the deer.

One deer can transport hundreds of ticks. One female tick can lay 2,000 to 3,000 eggs. It is again unfortunate that the deer have this role.

Again, it is a matter of threshold density, and you can dramatically reduce Lyme disease if you can get the deer population down to about 10 per square mile. This also has a dramatic benefit for allowing the woodlands to regenerate.

Unfortunately, deer have been allowed to overpopulate to really high densities, like 40, 60, 80 per square mile, especially in suburban towns. (There are extremes in certain places that are hard to believe unless you visit them, such as 200 deer per square mile.) When you see this condition, you see nothing on the forest floor but leaf litter, and stream banks that are eroding.

Most foresters and conservationists recognize that they have no choice but to manage the deer. To do otherwise would be to abrogate their responsibilities to all the other forest creatures and the very future of the woodlands that are under their stewardship.